


Knockout Punches

by themagicalocelot



Series: re-arranging our lives, by fate or by choice [2]
Category: Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Background Relationships, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Drunken Mistakes, Friendship, Multi, Past Relationship(s), Platonic Relationships, Steve & Jess centric, Steve needs friends tbh, it's not going to lead to romance just a psa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-05 18:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14625018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themagicalocelot/pseuds/themagicalocelot
Summary: Steve Rogers has a lot of reasons to hate the world. Jessica Jones always has her reasons to hate the world. They become unlikely friends, as he tries to navigate his life in the wake of the impending Thanos-situation, and also deals with residual feelings from his previous relationship with Tony Stark. A story about making friends and learning to be good to one another.(Infinity War rewrite. Steve & Jess centric, other relationships are past/background elements for now.)





	1. knockout punches

**Author's Note:**

> TBH while writing my IronStrange fic (Tony, Meet Strange) in this series, I was just thinking of bearded Steve and thought: wow, he'd get along so well with Jessica Jones, and they'd bitch about the world together, so. this is that kind of fic. 
> 
> (Sharon Carter will also appear somewhere at some point! will tag accordingly when she does.)

Living on the down low has its perks—for the most part, anonymity gives him a certain type of freedom he’s never had before, like a weight lifted off his shoulders. He has people he talks to, trusts, but they’re not always at the same place at the same time. So life can get a little lonely, especially when those vigilante nights are a little quiet. Steve ends up moving back to New York a couple months ago, with a place in Hell’s Kitchen. It’s been very little action, and he’s been begging Natasha to put him somewhere else, anywhere, with a little more raging threat.

Nat just tells him to sit tight, and says she’ll call if she hears anything. Steve has learned that nowadays, when people say they’ll call—they hardly ever mean it.

He ends up at a bar one uneventful night just to breathe in the neighborhood. He was supposed to meet Sam for a drink, but something came up for him and he couldn’t make it. He’s in jeans and a black tank top, and gets a couple glances when he walks into the place, but people quickly resume their conversations as he takes a seat at the bar and orders a whiskey.

A woman is staring at him, oddly enough wearing the same jeans and tank top combo, except with a denim jacket on her. He examines her: pale face, jet black hair, small, but looks like she wants to pick a fight with the biggest guy in the room, which happens to be him.

“What’s your problem,” she snaps, taking a swig from her bottle.

Steve frowns. “Excuse me?”

“You look way too perfect for your life to be falling apart. You an athlete or something? Lost a game maybe,” she says, squinting as she looks at him. Steve’s pretty sure that she isn’t recognizing him, or at least it’s not registering yet.

“Something like that,” Steve replies, as the bartender hands him the glass.

She nods, as if that answer’s enough for her. “Too bad,” she says, turning back to the TV above the bar, showing news reports from the alien attack from the other day. Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Spiderman managed to subdue the threat, after being pulled up to space for a brief moment, before returning back to Earth safely. Steve had been holding his breath the entire time they were up there, obsessing over whether Tony was safe, and alive, until the news broke that they had come back.

He reaches for his phone to ask Nat for updates on the situation, but his arm gets knocked over by hers as she gestures towards the screen and the phone smashes on the floor. She has surprisingly hard elbows, Steve thinks.

“Can you believe this shit show,” the woman says. “You know, you’d think with new superheroes popping up every other day, they’d start fixing things rather than tearing the city apart every week.”

“It’s not that simple,” Steve says. “Some of them can’t act in public without being ringed in by the government.”

“Right,” she says, and they’re both looking at each other now, both tired, with their own reasons. “That registration thing from a couple of years ago. It’s bullshit.”

Steve nods. “Drink to that.”

He orders another round for the both of them and moves to the stool next to her. “Steve, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

She gives him a look of mild irritation, and he doesn’t understand why (maybe she just doesn’t like formal introductions, or people named Steve), but then softens up a little, trying to get a good read on him. “Let me guess, Brooklyn?” 

He smiles, amused. “How’d you know?”

“You don’t look like you’re from around the block,” she smiles back. “Jessica Jones. Have we met before? Because you look really familiar.”

Steve tenses up, and most of the time he’d just lie and move on, but there was something about the way she was looking at him that made him feel like she had him cornered. She’s clearly already pretty drunk, but he can’t tell if she’s trying to flirt with him or not—most girls make it obvious: the smile, the touch on the shoulder, or the arm, the laughing, but with her, Steve really has no clue how to play the next move.

“Look, whatever. If you don’t wanna talk, that’s fine. But I’m heading home, so you can either come with me or stay,” she says, with an exasperated look on her face. Well at least that’s one question answered, Steve thinks.

“I’ll come.”

She accidentally steps on his phone when she gets off her stool, and it splits apart into a hundred tiny pieces. “It was already broken,” she mumbles, walking ahead.

They get back to her apartment, which also her office, interestingly enough. She’s a PI, which Steve doesn’t come across often, and suddenly he’s worrying about weather she’s another agent who someone assigned to watch him. She goes over to her table and pulls out another bottle of booze, cracks it open and takes several gulps down. He starts doubting the whole agent theory.

“So Steve,” Jessica says as she leads them into her bedroom, taking off her shoes by the bed. “I have two rules: don’t talk, and don’t overstay your welcome in the morning.”

She’s polite, Steve thinks. “I don’t follow orders very well.”

“Well, you’re going to have to try tonight because I led you all the way here and you’re not going back home now.”

Steve’s careful when trying to hold her, but she clearly isn’t interested in holding back. She’s unexpectedly strong, Steve actually feels himself tipping off balance as they’re getting into bed, but and he doesn’t even know where this is coming from, considering the lack of muscles on her general frame. He wrestles her down into a kiss, and it’s heavy and desperate. She bites down on him hard, and Steve is careful not to collapse his weight onto her, but she’s pulling him in like he wants him to. Her arm locked around his neck and she keeps him close, as she starts pushing off her jeans. 

He touches her body, hands sliding up from her stomach to her chest, and she bites into his neck hard. He lets out a soft gasp, surprising himself. He isn’t sure what to do, in all honesty. It’s not the sex that’s the issue—even though he didn’t exactly have it on the schedule for tonight—it’s just the fact that she seems a little more than drunk right now, and he doesn’t want to be a bad decision or worse, for someone else in the morning. 

She reaches out to touch him under his briefs, and  _fuck_ , does she have a strong grip. He does his best to pull away, forcibly getting her hand off him. She’s already getting her top off, and Steve sighs, because he’s  _hard,_ and what’s even harder is making himself hit the brakes on this thing.

“I don’t think I’m—” Steve splutters out, as her top flies over his shoulder. “Could we slow down?”

“I don’t do vanilla,” she says, pulling him back in for another kiss. 

Steve takes a breath as their mouths separate, “I meant, I need a moment to pause.”

“You’re kidding.” She throws her head back on the pillow behind her, her black hair tangled around her neck and face. 

Steve sighs, rolling over to lie down beside her. “Sorry. It’s not that I don’t want to—” 

“Why do I usually go for the emotionally unavailable ones,” she groaned. “Should’ve noticed the breakup beard.”

“Excuse me?” Steve turns on his side to face her. “This is—no, it’s—”

“A breakup beard. I’ve seen them before. How bad was it?” Her eyes are shut, the back of her hand pressed over her face.

“I thought you said no talking,” Steve says.

“If you’re not going to leave then might as well put me to sleep with your sob story,” she says, turning her back on him and pulling up the covers. “What are you waiting for, go.”

He figures that opening up to a stranger isn't the worst thing in the world. It might be just what he needs, in all honesty.

“So I was dating this guy,” Steve starts, unsure of whether to name drop, but tries pushing his luck anyway. “Tony. We were co-workers, fell out pretty rough. It was my fault more than anything.” 

“Why’d you fall out,” Jessica mumbles.

“It was a professional disagreement. I used to think I was pretty good at discerning between right and wrong, but we were both going through our own problems at the time that we forgot about the choices we had to make for  _us_. Truth is, neither of those should’ve mattered, we knew when we signed up for the job that we were supposed to be deciding what was good for everyone, not—” Steve hears Jessica snoring, and sighs. 

He isn’t sure whether to leave or not, but then remembers her second rule: _don’t overstay your welcome in the morning_ , and figures she was serious about that. He puts his clothes back on and heads back to his apartment. He needs to get a hold of Nat on a secure line, but he hasn’t exactly paid for wi-fi at his place, and with his phone broken, he’ll have to wait until the morning to get a new one.

He isn’t sure what to think of Jessica, and convinces himself that she’d forget about him by the next morning anyway. Something was off about her, but he wasn’t exactly in the best state of mind either. He’d stolen another bottle of booze from her place before leaving. It helps him sleep, more than anything. Nothing comes close to getting him drunk without the help of Thor’s Asgardian liquor, of which he’d finished his supply of when he went on a pretty bad bender a year ago. Sam and Nat had to drag him back up his feet in the middle of a village in Latvia in the dead of winter. It was a long story, and one that he didn’t exactly need a repeat of. He drinks the bottle empty and strips down before heading to sleep. No one’s in desperate need of him at this hour, and he doubts that things would change by the next morning.

 

-

 

The next morning, Steve goes out to buy a new cellphone. He’s in the middle of talking to the customer services employee about the data plan, when Jessica marches into the shop, eyes dead set on him.

“Asshole,” she says, and he isn’t sure if it’s directed to him at first. She stops in front of him, and Steve takes a breath, shrugging into his leather jacket and pushing his cap down. All four people in the store turn their heads.

“You stole my booze last night,” she finally says.

Exhale in relief. “Sorry, I—needed the drink.” She doesn’t believe him, but it looks like she’s taking pity on him all of a sudden.

“Look, I know who you are,” Jessica finally drops her voice.

“You do?" 

“Yeah, once I sobered up it wasn’t that difficult to put two and two together. Also, you were droning on for Tony Stark for so long it was nauseating. Can’t believe I forgot about the time you two were sleeping with each other.”

Steve yanks her to a corner of the shop. Everyone seems to be carrying on as normal again. “How did you know that?”

“A client told me to get some dirt on some guy who worked in Stark’s building. I went to the wrong floor, saw you two stumbling into the penthouse suite one night. You barely made it out of the elevator without tearing each other’s clothes off." 

Steve remembers that night. It was actually after Ultron, and it was Pepper’s birthday. Tony had just given the most ridiculous speech, complete with a full power-point presentation on her life, but got a little choked up when he started talking about how much they loved each other. Looking at all of their pictures seem to have struck a chord in him. He talked about how he was the luckiest man in the world when he had Pepper by his side, and Steve went over to go talk to him about it afterwards.

_“What’s wrong, Tony? You did great,” Steve asked, leaning into him at the bar. “Look at how happy she is.”_

_“Yeah, without me,” Tony replied. “She was never consistently like this. Even when things were good, there was always something. It was was always me stressing her out, me making things worse one way or another. I just love—god I love the way she smiles when everything’s okay.”_

_“Tony, from what I’ve seen all you ever do is try to make things right,” Steve said, tilting his head to look up at the other man. He gave him an encouraging smile, and Tony couldn’t help but smile a little too._

_“You’re charming, Rogers,” Tony said, tapping the bartop for another one. “Surprised you’re not spending all your nights with a pretty blonde by your side.”_

_Steve let out a hopeless laugh. “It’s not that easy with pretty blondes. I know you better, Tony.”_

_The other man went quiet, eyes shifting between their new drinks on table and Steve. “Yeah, I guess you do.”_

It wasn’t the first time they kissed that night at the bar, but it was the first time they went back home together. Jessica is looking at him now, snapping her fingers in front of his face.

“So you gonna buy me back my booze or what,” Jessica says.

“I don’t have—” Steve starts, but by the look on her face it doesn’t seem like he’ll be getting off easy. He yields. He’ll put it on the credit card Nat gave him. “Fine.”

They walk to a liquor store after getting his phone sorted out, not much chatter on the way. She doesn’t seem like one for small talk. Steve buys her a bottle of dark rum, and they’re about to part ways when an alarm sounds from a nearby bar. She pauses before busting in there, Steve trailing behind. He hadn’t expected her to be the first to walk in, and they find a group of five guys pointing cornering the bartender. One of them has a gun, another has a baseball bat.

“Fellas,” Steve says. They turn around.

Jessica rolls her eyes. “God, I forgot superheroes all come with taglines.”

One of the shoots at Jessica with the gun, and Steve pushes her out of the way in time but the bullet scrapes her shoulder.

“Asshole!” she yells, charging forward and tackling the guy into the ground. She grabs the gun and snaps it in half.

“What the hell—” Steve says, and ducks as one of them tries to take a swing at him with the baseball bat. Another two try to take a stab at him from both sides with ther knives. Steve takes the baseball bat and knocks down one of the knives out of the guy’s hand. At the same time, Jessica hurls one of the guys across the room, while a bigger one gets ahold of Steve’s neck. Jessica drops down and grabs him by the ankles before dragging him across the floor. She steps on his foot for good measure, a loud wail escaping his mouth.

Steve gets several bottles thrown at him, and one of the men is dragging the bartender out the back door. Jessica looks at Steve for a second, as if torn between helping him or the bartender, but as Steve knocks three of them down with one arm, she turns around and chases after the bartender.

It doesn’t take much to disarm all the ones with knives and knock them out, and Steve finds some tape in the storage room before taping their wrists together. Jessica walks back in, dragging the last perp by one arm, unconscious while hauling the bartender by the shirt in the other hand.

“Don’t sell drugs,” Jessica says flatly at the bartender while throwing the perp on the ground. “Call the cops, now.” She looks at the bartender again, still frozen. “What are you waiting for? Do it,” she orders.

He gets his phone out and starts dialing 911. She looks at the line of men, tied on the ground, and walks towards the door.

Steve stands in front of her, broad shoulders blocking her. “You’re strong.”

“Uh-uh,” she says. “And you’re not recruiting me, so don’t get any ideas.” She pushes him out of the way like he's nothing, and disappears out into the streets before Steve can get another word out. He suddenly feels buzz in his pocket. It’s a text from Nat: _Postponed meeting confirmed today, at safehouse. 30 minutes. Tony will be there._

He checks the time, and _shit_. He’s nowhere close to the meeting point, so he hotwires a motorcycle parked behind the bar and figures he’ll return it later. He can’t stop thinking about her, who she might be, and it’s not until Steve stumbles into the meeting, visibly late, eyes meeting Tony’s, that the heat starts rising to his face once again. Tony’s looking at him like he’s not there, and the entire room holds their breath. He doesn’t know how this is going to go, but if there was any time to just suck it up and roll with it, it’s now.

 


	2. who's gonna get you through the night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess and Steve keep bonding over drinks at their regular bar: it's a same place, same time, kind of thing. They learn about each other and find out that they have more in common than they initially thought. Steve tries to get Jess to work with him as a hero.
> 
> (Infinity War timeline: rewrite of the Vision/Wanda Scotland scene, except this time it's at the Avengers compound in Manhattan.)

The first meeting with Tony and the rest of the Avengers after all these years goes exactly as expected. It’s mostly awkward, a little tense, and Steve’s finds himself shrinking back to let Tony take the reins on the discussions. He’s been kept out of the loop on most things, and it doesn’t do any favors for his rapidly decreasing sense of self-confidence and self-worth. He’s always had to be an asset to someone; without being useful to someone, there isn’t much for a soldier to do out here.

He doesn’t know what to do about Tony, despite having thought about this exact situation countless times over the years. He can’t seem to bring himself to say anything else besides: _I missed you, Tony_ , despite that perhaps being the worst possible thing to lead with. Tony doesn’t seem to want to entertain this conversation right now, and his eyes keep shifting over to Doctor Strange, who Steve is just itching to get to know. After Tony makes it clear that their conversation isn’t going anywhere, Steve makes a beeline for Strange. Part of him is trying to make a point, maybe, but he isn’t sure what it is.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Steve says, extending his arm out to shake his hand. “Appreciate you sending out that email. Haven’t been called for a mission in a while.”

Strange looks him up and down, quick enough to make it seem like he’s completely impartial to him, but Steve can tell there’s something behind those eyes. He thinks he knows what might be going on, but isn’t ready to admit just yet. The man is tall, handsome, and carries himself with an aura of confidence that seems to be more of a sign of self-assuredness than arrogance.

“It’s no problem. Doctor Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, nice to make your acquaintance,” Steve notices a slight tremble in his hand as he shakes his. He notices the scars on them as he pulls away.

He hasn’t exactly thought this through, and he isn’t sure what to say next, to be frank. “Right. I should get going. Places to be,” Steve splutters out, even though that isn’t exactly true. Strange nods anyway, and Steve leaves without another word to anyone else. He returns to motorcycle he’d ‘borrowed’ from the bar, and thankfully it doesn’t seem like the owner has come looking for it since.

He gets a phone call from Nat when he’s back in his apartment. He picks it up immediately, thinking—perhaps even hoping—for an emergency situation.

“You doing okay?” she asks, voice composed.

“I’m fine. Is there something you need?”

“Not at the moment, no. Just wanted to see how you were holding up after you know, seeing him for the first time.”

Steve sighs, slumping into his seat. “It didn’t go so well.”

“Care to elaborate?” 

“There isn’t much to say. Seems like the reason he hasn’t called after all these years is because he just…” he shrugs, “has nothing left to say to me.”

There’s a pause as she takes a breath, drawing out the moment to think of something to say. In the end, all she can say is, “I’m sorry, Steve.” 

“I’ll be fine. We should be focusing on the mission anyways. Are you still going to try to get Vision and Wanda back on the compound?" 

“Already got them in,” Nat replies. “Rhodey’s taken care of Ross for us. You sure you don’t want to come in?" 

“I’m sure.” It’s not a home for him anymore, not if Tony isn’t there.

“Okay, well. Door’s always open,” Nat says, before the line clicks shut.

Steve doesn’t have much on his schedule, in the wake of alien invasions—he has no one to report to, no orders to follow, and no plan of strategy for this impending attack. He isn’t a scientist, or a sorcerer, or even a spy. His mission has always been keeping people safe, and Nat, Sam Rhodey already seem to have Vision and Wanda under good supervision at the compound. He could go see Bucky, perhaps, sometime soon, but the more often he turns up to Wakanda for social occasions, the less T’Challa would view him as a serious ally. He has to sit tight and wait.

So he hits the bar that night, again, hoping to find lightning in a bottle again like the last time with Jessica. He feels like they still have unfinished business between them, and surely enough, he sees her at the exact same spot in the bar when he walks in.

“Christ, are you following me now?” Jessica groans as Steve takes a seat next to her.

“I just wanted to talk,” Steve says. He quickly realizes that he has to change his approach when it comes to Jessica. She doesn’t do things for people unless they were in desperate need of her. 

He takes a page out of the spies’ book of tactical persuasion and decides to bare all his wounds. “I know we don’t know each other all that well, and maybe that’s for the best—hell, I think I even prefer it that way.”

“I get it, you want me to stay a stranger.”

“I just don’t have anywhere else to go,” Steve says, eyes flickering down to the table. His chest tightens when he realizes that this isn’t at all a lie. He can’t bring himself to keep up the act anymore, and if she still isn’t interested, then he’d respect that.

“I can’t believe I’d ever see Captain America looking like a sorry piece of ass,” she replies, which gets Steve’s attention back at her. “Makes me feel a lot better about my problems now.”

“Well, tell me about them,” Steve says instinctively.

She laughs, bringing the drink closer to her lips. “Oh, you don’t want to hear the start of it.” She drinks the glass empty.

“Did your best friend kill your ex boyfriend’s parents?” Steve asks, admittedly, a little presumptuously—and Jessica gives him a squint in response, before pursing her lips and drumming her fingers on the table.

“My best friend killed my mom,” she deadpans. Steve is at a loss for words, and she flashes a Cheshire cat grin in response. “Not so fun playing this game with me, huh?”

Steve straightens himself up in his chair, digging for more ammo. “Did your best friend get experimented on?” 

“She _wanted_ to be experimented on,” she says. “By the same person who did it to my mom, and me. Keep trying, soldier." 

“Lose all your family to random illness?”

“More like random accident. Car crash,” Jessica keeps going. “I can do this all night.”

“Pushed away the one person who ever loved you—truly, loved you?”

She smiles again, a little sad this time, nodding as she exhales heavily.

Steve raises his hands in defeat. “You win. I’ll stop whining about my life now.” 

“Hey, you clearly have a lot going on. You can keep talking if you get the next round,” Jessica says. So she does have a nice side. 

“Deal.”

Steve keeps swinging by to the bar every other night, just to talk. Neither of them seem to want to take things outside this little pocket of space they’ve carved out for themselves. It’s comfortable here, an open place where the both of them can let go of their baggage and just say things as they are. Jessica also doesn’t hold back on the judgment when she needs to, and Steve doesn’t actually mind it all that much. He can take what she has to say about him.

 _That’s what you get for bringing in an unstable mutant orphan and try to turn her into one of you. Not everyone who has powers should be a hero,_ Jessica tells him about Wanda, and Sokovia.

 _People tend to lose all romantic affection towards you when you keep secrets from them, especially when you’re involved in the murder of someone they loved,_ she says about Luke, but Steve only thinks about his mistakes in regards to Tony.

 _Oh, trust me. I know what it’s like to be running around protecting a killer. Of course, I knew it was wrong, but what else could I do? She was my mom,_ and this time, there’s no judgment, only understanding.

“They think you’re deliberately choosing the most difficult option, the one designed to fuck up their lives personally,” she raises her voice at the bar, a little more intoxicated than usual today. “But they have no fucking clue. No matter how many people I save, no matter what I do—” she laughs, unable to finish.

“You’re a good person, Jess,” Steve says, and the bar is just about to close. “We should probably head off.”

“Yeah, got more booze at my place anyway.”

“That’s not—” Steve gets interrupted by his phone buzzing. It’s Nat. 

“Vision situation at the compound. We need you ASAP, Steve,” she says through the phone, breathless.

He hangs up the phone and looks at Jessica. “I need to go.”

“Do I wanna know what it is?” she stands up the same time Steve does, as if ready to follow him outside. He wants to hope that she will.

“Only if you want to come along,” Steve says, watching the suspicion growing on her face. “We could use some more muscle." 

She visibly tenses, turning cold, as she looks him in the eyes with her piercing sharp gaze. “Sorry, not my job.”

“Someone’s in danger,” Steve tries.

“Isn’t that why Captain America is coming to the rescue?”

“We all could be if we don’t manage to save Vision,” Steve wants to emphasize the world-ending nature of the situation, but time is running out and he can’t wait on her any longer.

“I guess I’ll see you when this neighborhood’s all up in flames,” Steve says on the way out, not looking back. “And the rest of the city, too.”

“Guilt-tripping me, really? And you wonder why you make a shitty team leader!” she yells as he marches out the doors. He tries to ignore her words, but it stings a little. Because everything she’s said to him so far have all been fair and true, and this was no exception. 

He gets to the compound and finds them all scattered in the field outside, scorch marks on the grass and visible signs of struggle. He sees Vision on the ground with Wanda, a large stab wound through his torso, and Sam’s up in the air firing away at this alien. Nat’s going hand-to-hand with another, who has blue hair, wielding a large spear.

“A little late to the party, Cap,” Sam says, dodging some energy shots being fired at him. Steve runs to the alien and tackles him down to the ground, trying to wrestle his weapon out of his hands.

“Well, Steve’s credit card reports have been coming up with an awful lot of bar tabs,” Nat says. She then starts choking on the other end of the line before her comms turn to static. Steve looks behind him, sees her getting strangled on the ground

“Sam!” Steve yells, as the alien has a grip on both his arms, flipping them over until he’s pinned down to the ground. He’s still got ahold of his spear and manages to throw it over his head before kicking the alien off him.

“On it,” Sam replies, and swoops down towards Nat and the other one. She has Nat in a chokehold with one hand and uses her spear to shoot at Sam with the other. He goes flying towards the woods.

Steve runs over to fight her, but even as she lets go Nat’s looking like she’s falling unconscious. Wanda’s still trying to patch up Vision, but gets knocked over as the other alien ambushes her from behind. Steve’s too far to get to Vision, and the alien’s one step away from getting to him until suddenly, Steve sees him flying backwards as he skids back several hundred feet away.

He squints and finds Jessica marching up towards the alien, punching him down into the ground before he can get back up. She kneels down and hits him one more time in the chest, and Steve feels the force of impact rippling in the air. The female alien rushes over to the other one.

“You will pay for what you did,” she hisses at Jessica.

“I’ll wait for the bill,” she says, and then a light beams both of them up into the air and presumably, back into their spacecraft. Sam comes stumbling out of the woods, wings broken, and Nat’s just getting back up on her feet.

“Who’s she?” she asks, massaging her neck as Steve holds her up.

“Girl I met at the bar.” She raises an eyebrow at him and he shrugs, barely holding back a smile.

They walk over towards her and she looks a little restless, probably more to do with the two spies staring at her more than the aliens she just fought. 

“Thank you for that,” Steve says. “You saved our asses." 

“Could use some more of that next time,” Sam says.

“Yeah, well, don’t count on it,” she says, looking back over her shoulder at Vision, still injured on the ground. Wanda’s waking up again, too. “They okay?" 

“They will be,” Steve reassures her. “We’ll move them to a more secure location tonight.”

“What’s your name?” Nat asks her.

“Jessica,” she says, growing more and more uncomfortable by the second. “Look, I’m not interested in making this a full-time job. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go call a cab and head back.”

“Want me to drive you back?” Steve asks her, but she shakes her head in response.

“You go get him,” she says, vaguely pointing at Vision, “wherever he needs to be. I’ll see you at the bar when you get back.”

He chuckles in response, and she offers a tiny smile as she walks away. Sam and Nat are both looking at him with curious eyes, and Steve shoots back with the standard _it’s not what you think_ line, because it’s difficult to explain the relationship they have. Although considering the long flight they have ahead of them—Steve’s decided that they need to take Vision to Wakanda—it might be hard to ignore all the pressing questions they’d inevitably start firing at him. 

  


End file.
